Earplugs are worn by industrial workers to protect their hearing while working in various noisy environments. As a worker enters a noisy workplace environment, the worker is required to insert earplugs prior to returning to daily work activities. While some workers may choose to reuse earplugs, many workers choose to change out their earplugs throughout the day such as upon arrival or upon returning from a break (e.g., lunch). In such cases, the workers will need to quickly obtain new earplugs from a dispenser strategically located in the workplace.
Various earplugs dispensers are available for implementation in the workplace. Such dispensers are often mounted to a wall near an entrance such that a worker may obtain earplugs upon arrival. Existing earplug dispensers, however, suffer from various shortcomings such as the inclusion of internal components that only move in a single direction, dispensing too few or too many earplugs upon use (earplugs sticking together), hanging up or jamming earplugs inside internal moving parts, or failing to dispense any earplugs at all. Thus, there remains a need in the art for an earplug dispenser that quickly, efficiently dispenses the desired number of earplugs while overcoming the aforementioned shortcomings.